News Sites Rethink Anonymous Online Comments

nytimes.com

13 points·quan··5 comments

I don't know how they plan on making comments not anonymous. In this article the only defense is having users register. Which I'm assuming means that they would register with a valid email address and click a confirmation link. In that case services such as ShadyEmail.com and the like can get around this type of registration.

The only real way to stop anonymous comments and commenting is to make being a non-anonymous member of the community more rewarding and productive than being an anonymous member. It's not really a technology or policy issue, its an issue of personal incentive and community.

Re: "The only real way to stop," I don't entirely agree. News sites could approach their comments like they approach their letters to the editor, and ask for the phone number of new members.

Verifying every phone number would be a lot of work, so you don't do that. Just verify the folk who post more than, say, 5 comments.

Craigslist verifies every phone number in order to post in certain sections. It probably isn't to hard.

Requiring phone numbers could be effective. Though no matter what technology you use there will be a way to get around it.

I think a good case study of a community promoting non-anonymous comments is facebook. They use very little in the way of technology to prevent flamewars and spam, mostly it is user culture.

I know I probably sound like a broken record to some, but I wrote a long article about the problem of anonymity/pseudonymity on the web: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/12/33338/3000

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